Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Changing how you think about mobile internet

I ran across Ari Jaaksi’s Blog when searching for information about the Nokia 770. Ari is actually one of the developers of the 770 and has some very good points on a blog post entitled “It is not a cell phone — and it is good,” which specifically deals with the 770. Although there is lots of information in the post and I highly encourage you to read it, here is the salient point:

Internet Tablets are different – they are new. Rules, markets, technology, customers, partners, and channels to customers are new and still evolving. This is good! It is an interesting opportunity for Nokia. And because all is new, we want to be flexible. We utilize open source, work with interesting new partners, and avoid all unnecessary baggage that would slow us down. Adding a cell phone into our internet tablet would put all the cell phone requirements on us and would make us slow. It would force us to play by the cell phone rules.

We don’t mix these things. We want to get the best possible mobile internet experience into the hands of our customers – though dedicated internet tablets!

Some analysts are attacking Nokia from departing from its core business. It’s interesting because Nokia is really inventing a new business that actually supports the use of their existing business. Ari makes the point that he wants the smallest possible phone with the highest speed wireless data chip to pair via Bluetooth with his 770. This is a large departure from all of those people that are trying to get everything they need into a horrible form factor (come on, nobody actually loves the form factor of their Blackberry enough to take it out on weekends). It makes me take a step back and wonder if instead of going after a Treo, I should be finding the smallest EVDO phone I can get and pairing it with my 770 so that I have a small phone to use on the weekends.